Investigating EFL Learners’ Knowledge of Vocabulary and Idiomatic Expressions in a Culture-Based Instructional Environment

This study attempted to investigate the influences of cultural background knowledge on improving Iranian pre-intermediate EFL students’ vocabulary and idiomatic expressions. To reach this purpose, the Oxford Quick Placement Test (OQPT) was performed on 100 English as a foreign language (EFL) learners and 60 of them were selected. The selected respondents were then randomly divided into three groups: group A (Target Culture=TC), group B (Iranian Culture = IC), and group C (Culture-Free=CF). Afterwards, a vocabularyidiomatic expressions pretest was given to all groups. Then, the respondents of the three groups received three different treatments. Regarding the treatment, 10 texts pertinent to the customs and the culture of Iran were taught to the IC group, meanwhile, 10 texts with the new vocabulary and idiomatic expressions relevant to the target culture were taught to the TC group, and 10 culture-free texts including some new words and idiomatic expressions were trained to the CF group. After the instruction which took 10 sessions of 60 minutes each, the data were analyzed by using one-way ANOVA and paired sample t-test. The results depicted that the TC and the IC groups * Corresponding author, email: e.namazi75@yahoo.com Citation in APA style: Namaziandost, E., Tavakoli, M., & Izadpanah, S. (2021). Investigating EFL learners’ knowledge of vocabulary and idiomatic expressions in a culture-based instructional environment. Studies in English Language and Education, 8(3), 1080-1093. Received May 01, 2021; Revised July 20, 2021; Accepted July 22, 2021; Published Online September 16, 2021 https://doi.org/10.24815/siele.v8i3.22543 E. Namaziandost, M. Tavakoli & S. Izadpanah, Investigating EFL learners’ knowledge of vocabulary and idiomatic expressions in a culture-based instructional environment | 1081 outflanked the CF group. This study has numerous implications for learners, teachers, and curriculum designers.


INTRODUCTION
Culture and language are highly linked that they are considered as the equivalent words (Scarcella & Oxford, 1992). On the one hand, language is utilized to manifest humans' social considerations, convictions, and communication. On the other hand, culture is inserted within the language (Ghafor, 2020). Brown (2000) notes that language and culture are inserted in each other. Because these two concepts are naturally mixed, it is impossible to make a border between them; they have equal importance.
Because language and culture transfer meanings, they play a communicative role. Language has the duty to transmit syntactical, semantical, and pragmatic functions for language speakers to establish communications (Brooks, 1968). Additionally, cultural meaning is carried by behavioral patterns such as language. To do successful communication across languages and cultures, it is necessary to figure out culturally diverse standards of interactions and people's values and beliefs (Saville-Troike, 2003). Linguistically appropriate sentences can lead to misunderstanding and confusion when used in diverse cultural situations (Schulz, 2007).
Knowing the cultural context is the part of the content scheme that is necessary to understand a text. Various investigations have displayed that familiarity with the target cultural issues may be very important for the reader's ability to understand the passages (Dehghan & Sadighi, 2011). Based on Oller's (1995) definition, the cultural scheme is a tool to rebuild the meanings of a passage by referring to associated cultural scripts. Language conveys cultural knowledge and information and shows the fundamental and specific way of thinking of a person. Culture is thus anchored in even the easiest speech acts (Yusuf et al., 2017); it is an integral segment of our lifestyle and the way we apply the language.
Another important part of every language is idiomatic expressions. According to Maisa and Karunakaran (2013), idioms exist in all languages and are abundant. Native speakers (NSs) frequently employ idiomatic phrases without considering their metaphorical interpretation. It is common for non-native speakers (NNSs) to struggle with idioms since they really do not understand what the idiomatic expression's picture is built on. Idiomatic phrases are being used on a regular basis by English NSs. It is an important element of the English lexicon and vocabulary. Idiomatic phrases are thus deemed unavoidable for English NNSs. Thus, NNSs should get acquainted with these phrases. Idiomatic phrases must be learned and practiced by English NNSs in the same way that NSs do. Consequently, idiomatic phrases must be included in ESL and EFL classrooms and educational content.
Familiarity with the target culture can boost EFL learners' vocabulary knowledge. Learning English vocabulary is taken into account as a fundamental element of EFL (Schmitt & Carter, 2000). Learning vocabulary is the prerequisite for learning other skills and sub-skills. Schmitt (2008) says that learning vocabulary is critical because it is an important indicator of language achievement. Likewise, language learning is basically related to vocabulary knowledge, the lack of lexical elements will hinder the process of learning a foreign language. Without sufficient lexical knowledge, EFL students may not achieve desired language learning outcomes (Macis & Schmitt, 2017). According to Adam (2016), the lack of lexical knowledge greatly impedes the authentic communications of EFL learners. It is therefore conceivable that EFL learners need appropriate knowledge of vocabulary. Considering the mentioned points, this research endeavored to respond to the following research question: • Does cultural awareness bear any remarkable impact on developing Iranian preintermediate EFL learners' vocabulary and idiomatic expressions knowledge?

Cultural Awareness and Vocabulary Learning
Many researchers and scholars propose that cultural integration is a basic element in learning the English language (EL) (Brown, 2007;Choudhury, 2014;Christiansen & Silva, 2016;Ghafor, 2020). To put it another way, one of the main rationales beyond teaching a foreign language nowadays is to improve the crosscultural communication skills of EFL learners, which is the capability to communicate successfully with NSs of other cultures (Bagherzadeh & Tajeddin, 2021;Gulbinskienė & Lasauskienė, 2014). Saluveer (2004) held that having such communicative abilities are insufficient without having cultural knowledge, constructed as apprehension and information gained just from the culture, but also on the culture itself (Dimas, 2016). Indeed, this knowledge includes the capability to explore our cultural perspectives and to compare with the culture of interlocutors. Even though observations, stories, poems, conferences, biographies, pictures, advertisements, and so on are regarded as rich sources, textbooks are still the most important sources for cultural teaching.
In one categorization, Nahrkhalaj (2012) prepared two classifications for the paper books utilized for teaching and learning EL: (1) Globally produced textbooks: Such sorts of textbooks are commonly made by native designers and they are used internationally with particular prominence on broad trans-cultural issues; thus, these types of books do not consider the cultural issues of their users (e.g., Interchange and Connect Books).
(2) Local/Locally designed textbooks: These types of textbooks are generally developed by NN English designers according to the local syllabus offered by the Ministry of Education of a specific country. By supplying cultural information about the cultures of the L1 and the L2, the goal of the mentioned textbooks is to familiarize EFL learners with the culture of the second language by their own background and to aid them to obtain a cross-cultural awareness considering both the first language and the second language cultures. Paige et al. (1999) held that the English textbooks which are used all over the world should be culturally rich in order to help students learn the language meaningfully and communicatively. There is a belief that says the majority of EFL textbooks, which are generally regarded as universally produced books, chiefly show the cultural ingredients of England and America (Toprak & Aksoyalp, 2015). That is, many of the global textbooks that are accessible in universities and booksellers are written only from English or American native writers' mono-cultural perspectives; actually, they have ignored non-native language users and their local cultures (Afshar & Moradifar, 2021;Seidlhofer, 2005).
Today, EFL and ESP textbooks are mainly anticipated to cover many topics and intercultural texts, drawing on both indigenous and non-native cultures, to educate learners and assist them to become effective communicators in diverse communication environments (Toprak & Aksoyalp, 2015). Getting to know British culture can make it easier for EFL learners to learn English words and idiomatic expressions.
A relevant theory about culture is schema theory. Schema theory was firstly proposed by Kant. Kant's finding gave rise to schema theory. The concept "schema" was coined by Kant, a German psychologist, in 1781. He claimed that schema was composed of learners' prior knowledge and described it as an "active evolving pattern" that suggested constant development and concept building. He argued that schema may assist the reader in filling in the details in the text by triggering his prior knowledge. Anderson and Pearson (1984) define the schema as dynamic, self-activating, and selfrevising. These qualities suggest that schema has a significant impact on cognitive learning processing. These properties suggest that schema has a significant impact on cognitive learning processing. Schemas help us focus, comprehend, analyze, remember, ratiocinate, and solve issues. A schema is a collection of abstracted knowledge. One of the most significant characteristics is that it becomes more real over time as a result of perceptual experience. Psychologists utilize schema theory to describe the comprehension process, which is based on a psychological model of a learner's prior knowledge. It assists learners in motivating their mental background information and, eventually, understanding the present knowledge, which is produced in the vocabulary instruction.
More importantly, having knowledge of vocabulary is mostly considered an essential means for second language learners since insufficient word knowledge in a second language hinders successful communications. Schmitt (1997) pointed out that "vocabulary knowledge is essential for communicative competence and foreign language learning" (p. 55). Nation (2001) explained the link between lexical competence and language usage as supplementary: lexical knowledge leads to language utilization and, mutually, language utilization results in increasing lexical knowledge. The significance of vocabulary is shown every day in and out of schools. In class, successful pupils have a thorough and complete lexical knowledge.
Idiomatic expressions, often recognized as idioms, are abundant in the EL and appear frequently. It is claimed that there are about 25,000 idiomatic phrases in the EL (Ambrose, n.d.). Idiomatic phrases in English are utilized in both official and casual conversations (Laflin, 1993). NNSs of English, on the other hand, have been proven to be unable of employing idiomatic phrases. NNSs, unlike English NSs, lack the capacity to employ idiomatic phrases and comprehend their implications. This is an issue in NNSs' English knowledge and competency, and it is seen as a gap in their process of language learning. According to Ambrose (n.d.), comprehending the English lexicon involves more than just understanding the referential definitions of the terms. It necessitates its users to comprehend figurative language and connotative word understanding, and idioms fall into this last group. Linguists understand that idiomatic phrases can have unpredictable meanings. That is, idioms have meaning merely by coincidence. A linguistic theory holds that idiomatic expressions take on meanings at random (Rizq, 2015). However, the research conducted in recent years has indicated many idioms are explicable and have no arbitrary interpretations (Afshar & Moradifar, 2021). There are a number of reasons explain why idiomatic expressions carry meaning. Rizq (2015) believed that idioms are not arbitrary properties of a language. As a result, they will become more aware of their meanings and become able to memorize them if they are taught that idioms have non-arbitrary meanings. It would be more effective to teach students idioms in a systematic manner rather than teaching them to memorize them by heart, which is challenging. It can make idiomatic expressions easier to learn and remember in such a way. In this way, NNSs learn through the use of idiomatic expressions the culture of the people of that language (Ovando & Collier, 1985). A learner of English, therefore, is better able to understand the English culture if he or she is familiar with idioms and their meanings.

Prior Studies
Some scholars including Read (2000), Rodríguez and Sadoski (2000), and Gu (2003) have understood that vocabulary learning is fundamental for the students to learn a language successfully, they also believe that vocabulary learning has the main role for English users to speak and to write English well. Vocabulary learning has a fundamental effect on learning and developing all EL skills and sub-skills (Nation, 2001). In addition, Nunan (1999) argued that having sufficient vocabulary knowledge is vital for learning a second language successfully since without having adequate vocabulary knowledge, students cannot apply the structures and the functions they may have acquired for meaningful and successful communications.
Several experimental types of research were performed to determine the impact of cultural familiarity on learning EL. Rashidi and Soureshjani (2011), Karimi and Nafissi (2017), Namaziandost et al. (2018), and Rasooli and Ahangari (2019) demonstrated the influences of familiarity with target culture on EL learning. Alkhresheh (2020) attempted to find out if Saudi EFL students are experiencing specific difficulties in their listening comprehension and determine whether cultural background influences the listening comprehension or not. For carrying out this research, the researchers used a triangulation method. A listening test and a questionnaire were administered to a group of 31 learners and a reflection test was administered to eight EFL instructors. The results showed that, firstly, listening is the most difficult skill, and secondly, Saudi EFL pupils had significant difficulties in the stages of perceiving, analyzing, and using their oral comprehension for several causes. The results also demonstrated that cultural background significantly influenced the listening process of Saudi English students. Namaziandost et al. (2020) inspected the impacts of cultural background knowledge on acquiring vocabulary by reading culturally-based passages. They carried out this research on 150 upper-intermediate EFL learners (both boys and girls). The respondents of each gender were randomly divided into three equal groups: group A (TC Group = TCG), B (Source Culture Group = SCG), and C (CF Group = CFG). After having homogenized the respondents by a Pre-test of vocabulary, the three groups got the instruction that was reading comprehension materials manifesting a specific culture. For the instruction, several reading texts pertinent to USA and UK cultures, Iranian culture, and CF materials were trained to the three groups of A, B, and C, respectively. At the treatment, a researcher-made vocabulary post-test was given to the students. The results of this investigation proved that the TCG and the SCG outflanked the CFG on the post-test. The outcomes depicted that both male and female learners did similarly on the vocabulary post-tests.
After examining the literature review in the domain of cultural familiarity, it can be found out that learners can understand and learn EL better when they are familiar with cultural background knowledge. The outcomes of the researches reviewed above showed that activating students' cultural schema would help them enhance their reading and listening skills. Most studies reported above examined the effects of cultural background knowledge, cultural schema, and cultural familiarity on enhancing EFL learners' reading and listening skills. In fact, studies on the impacts of cultural awareness on progressing Iranian EFL participants' vocabulary knowledge and idiomatic expressions are limited. Therefore, the present article was an effort to scrutinize the impacts of culturally-based materials on developing Iranian preintermediate EFL learners' vocabulary and idiomatic expressions knowledge.

Participants
Sixty participants were recruited from 100 learners based on the Oxford Quick Placement Test (OQPT). They were recruited from two English Language institutes in Iran. The participants' English proficiency level was pre-intermediate and their ages ranged from 16 to 23 years old. The target participants were randomly assigned to 3 equal groups experimental groups: Target Culture (TC), Iranian Culture (IC), and Culture-Free (CF).

Instruments
The first tool used in this study is the OQPT. This tool was applied to make the respondents homogeneous. It aided the researchers to better understand the level at which their subjects were. This test consists of 60 multiple-choice items and on this basis, students with scores between 30 and 37 are pre-intermediate. According to the findings of this test, 60 pre-intermediate respondents were considered as the final volunteers of the current investigation.
The other tool for collecting the necessary data was a researcher-designed vocabulary-idiomatic expressions test, designed based on the learners' textbooks. This test consisted of 40 objective items (20 items related to vocabulary and 20 elated to idiomatic expressions). The reliability and validity of the mentioned test were verified. After making the test, its validity was examined by three English instructors. In other words, to be sure of the value index of the content of the test questions, three English instructors read the tests and offered some modifications in terms of clarity, simplicity, and representativeness. The test was then changed and then piloted on a similar group at another institute whose course books and levels were similar to the target group.
Finally, the test was prepared for use. Its reliability was measured according to the formula KR-21 (r = 0.91).
The third tool was a researcher-designed vocabulary-idiomatic expression posttest, a modified sample of the pre-test. It was carried out to measure the impact of the convention on the participants' vocabulary development. All the features of the test were the same as the pre-test. The only difference was that the arrangement of the alternatives and the items were modified to remove the possibility of memorization of the pre-test responses. This test was considered valid and reliable because it was an alerted sample of the pre-test.

Procedure
Initially, the OQPT was administered to 100 Iranian EFL learners. On the basis of the learners' scores in the OQPT, 60 pre-intermediate learners were selected as the ultimate participants of the investigation. After the selection of the respondents, they were randomly assigned to three groups: TC, IC, and CF. Later, the participants of all groups were pre-tested by a vocabulary test, and then the treatment was started. Regarding the treatment, each group was instructed with the materials that manifested a specific culture. The materials were some texts containing new words and idiomatic expressions about particular cultural topics, for example, 10 texts about Iranian culture were taught to the IC group. The words and idiomatic expressions used in the mentioned texts were related to the costume and the culture of Iran. Ten texts about English culture were taught to the TC group. The vocabulary and idiomatic expressions used in the mentioned passages were relevant to the target culture. Ten culture-free texts including new words were taught to the CF group.
The whole instruction took 10 sessions of 60 minutes each. In the first session, the researchers homogenized the participants and in the subsequent session, they administered the pre-test to the students. During seven sessions, the mentioned texts were instructed and in the final session, the researchers gave a post-test of vocabularyidiomatic expressions to all groups. Finally, the collected data were analyzed by utilizing SPSS software.

Data Analysis
The researchers used SPSS software, version 22 to analyze the collected data. Firstly, they used the Kolmogorov-Smirnov (K-S) test to examine the quality of data normality. Secondly, they computed the descriptive statistics. Thirdly, they applied one-way ANOVA and paired sample t-test to assess the effects of the instruction on the students' vocabulary knowledge.

Normality Test
In Table 1, the K-S test was applied to examine the normality of the participants' scores in the pre and post-tests.  Table 1 depicts that the statistics of scores are normal (p>0.05). Therefore, oneway ANOVA and paired samples t-test can be utilized to achieve the outcomes.

Results of the Pre-test
Before implementing the convention, it was essential to check if any possible difference existed between both group's knowledge of vocabulary and idiomatic expressions. Thus, a one-way ANOVA was utilized: Based on Table 2, the three groups' performances on the pre-test were almost similar; their means display that they had similar vocabulary and idiomatic expressions knowledge before applying the treatment. The participants' means differences on the pre-test are indicated in Table 3. Since Sig (.14) is higher than (0.05), there is not a significant difference between the groups' pre-tests (p<0.05). Indeed, the groups conducted similarly on the pre-test.

Addressing the Research Question
The main research question raised in this study was to check if cultural awareness bears any significant effect on developing Iranian pre-intermediate EFL learners' vocabulary and idiomatic expressions knowledge. Therefore, it was needed to run a one-way ANOVA. Table 4 demonstrates that the mean scores of the TC and the IC groups are 16.05 and 15.75, respectively, on the post-test and the mean score of the CF group is 13.05. It appears the TC and the IC groups outperformed the CF group on the post-test. As seen in Table 5, the scores of the three groups on the post-test are displayed. Because Sig (.00) is less than (0.50), there exists a significant difference between the post-tests of the groups (p<0.05). It can be claimed that the TC and the IC groups outflanked the CF group on the vocabulary-idiomatic expressions post-test.  Table 6 compares the scores of all groups on the post-test. This table shows that there is a significant difference between the post-test of the CF group and the posttests of both TG and IC groups (p<0.05). In addition, the findings reveal that there is not a significant difference between the scores of the TG and the IC groups (p<0.05). The researchers concluded that both target culture and Iranian culture have a significant effect on developing English vocabulary and idiomatic expressions. Pairedsample t-tests were also used to figure out if there are any possible remarkable differences in the respondents' scores before and after the instruction (Table 7). In Table 7, the difference between the post-test and the pre-test of the CF group is not significant since Sig (.07) is greater than 0.05. Moreover, the difference between the post-test and the pre-test of the TC group is significant since Sig (.00) is less than 0.05. Therefore, it can be concluded that the treatment (teaching target culture materials) had positive effects on the English vocabulary and idiomatic expressions of this group. Lastly, as Table 7 shows, the difference between the post-test and the pretest of the IC group is significant since Sig (.00) is less than 0.05 which implies that teaching Iranian cultures affected English vocabulary and idiomatic expressions significantly.
All in all, after the data collection process, the researchers utilized one-way ANOVA and paired sample t-test to analyze them so as to discover the effects of cultural awareness on improving students' vocabulary and idiomatic expressions. The results proved that the TC and the PC groups performed better than the CF group. The findings of this investigation are in line with Namaziandost et al. (2018) who inspected the impacts of applying cultural materials on listening comprehension among Iranian EFL learners. Their outcomes verified that the EG had a better performance than the CG on the listening comprehension post-test. Also, this study is consistent with Tavakoli et al. (2012) who scrutinized the impacts of cultural background knowledge on reading comprehension. The outcomes indicated that cultural familiarity significantly influenced the inference and literal reading comprehension of the respondents.
Having cultural knowledge is a must for the students as Hayati (2009) stated that cultural knowledge of students is the basis for learning a language. She kept on that a language is only professionally learned when students obtain enough cultural knowledge of the target language. Supporters of the background knowledge believe that activating background knowledge and linking new information to the old information can lead to enhanced comprehension. If students do not have related knowledge about different topics in their minds, they will not comprehend the new passages well (Bilokcuoglu, 2014).
This study is supported by the schema theory which expresses that all knowledge is compiled into subunits and information is preserved inside these subunits of knowledge or schemata. The schema theory, which states that all knowledge is compiled into subunits and information is preserved inside these units of knowledge, or schemata underpins this research. The schema that encourages the acquisition of new information can activate the original knowledge system and link old and new knowledge. When students strive to learn anything new, they must make connections between new and old information. The learning of new skills is dependent on the schemata that have already been established, and linguistic inputs should be learned in line with them. According to Alptekin (2002), schema-based education helps learners discriminate between new vocabulary that have similar meanings. They assist learners in consolidating existing words, learning new words, and improving their expressive abilities. They may learn new vocabulary in a comfortable environment by linking it to their prior knowledge. He believes that acquiring new words based on schema theory might assist students to establish a good attitude toward learning new vocabulary and excite their enthusiasm in doing so, leading to a great interest in English learning.
This study sheds more light on the beneficial role of cultural background knowledge in learning skills and subskills. Since language and culture are interconnected, learning a language necessitates learning the culture of that language. This study was a unique one that increased the knowledge of vocabulary and idiomatic expressions through learning different cultural customs, new terms, and expressions.

CONCLUSION
Regarding the current study's findings, we come to the conclusion that the use of culturally-based materials in teaching and learning EL can bring about favorable outcomes. Here, it can be concluded that receiving instruction by applying cultural materials can be facilitative in learning English. The outcomes of this research verified that supplying sufficient information about the target language culture and assisting EFL learners to boost their cultural knowledge can have a positive impact on their vocabulary knowledge.
The outcomes of the present research possess several benefits for instructors, learners, and material developers. According to this research, it is offered to the teachers to activate their students' schema before performing different activities. If a subject contains some cultural points that these points are different from the learners' own culture, the teacher must supply related cultural background knowledge. Having background knowledge is the main factor for speaking and writing successfully. Hence, language learners who want to develop their vocabulary, speaking, listening, and writing skills are offered to expose themselves to cultural materials. More exposure to certain culturally-based materials can boost learners' language skills.
It is believed that putting cultural warm-up tasks and activities which are pertinent to passages, and also making the passages more familiar and easier before teaching them can be useful for the speakers and readers. Instructors, need to be cognizant of the usefulness of approaches that boost learners' text understanding and stress on programs that teach foreign language teachers on methods of prior knowledge activation and text nativization prior to starting reading passages. The outcomes of this research can make the Ministry of Education identify the significance of cultural materials.
Even though we did our best to carry out this research, drawbacks or limitations are investable in all studies. One limitation of this study refers to the small sample of this research which included only 60 Iranian learners; therefore, we should take care in generalizing the results to other populations in other contexts. Thus, next studies are offered to include more participants to boost their results' generalizability. Only quantitative data were collected to answer the research question; hence, next studies are suggested to utilize both qualitative and quantitative data to increase the validity of the findings. The participants of this research were from the EFL context, future studies are suggested to do such research in ESL contexts.